After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally, you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world.
Reality the iconoclast once more. Heaven will solve our problems, but not, I think, by showing us subtle reconciliations between all our apparently contradictory notions. The notions will all be knocked from under our feet. We shall see that there never was any problem.
the curse of human nature is imagination. When a long anticipated moment comes, we always find it pitched a note too low, for the wings of imagination are crushed into its withering sides under the crowding hordes of petty realities.
I used to be one of those people who read thrillers on vacation, but for some reason most thrillers no longer thrill me. Maybe because these days reality is far more unbelievable than any fiction?
You can get through your whole day only around people who will tell you that you're wonderful. But pretty soon they're going to have to be lying about that.
After I won the title, I was confronted with the real world. People do not behave naturally anymore - hypocrisy is everywhere.
Everything that happens is at least one dimension smaller than you've imagined it to be.
All that schooling never prepares you for the reality of life.
For people who live on expectations, to face up to their realization is something of an ordeal.
Civilised life, you know, is based on a huge number of illusions in which we all collaborate willingly. The trouble is we forget after a while that they are illusions and we are deeply shocked when reality is torn down around us.
Just thinking about that, if that were to really happen, if an alien were to come down and really abduct you, how terrifying and how earth-shattering would that be? Your whole world is just destroyed. God is destroyed. It's kind of a fascinating thing to think about.
When I found out about being cast in 'Spider-Man,' it was like this bubble developed around me. I was floating in it for a while. And then, suddenly, it evaporated, and I was like, 'Well, I'm just an actor. I don't get to actually be Spider-Man.'
The thought of real-life scares me to death.
Most men are like me. They cannot live in a universe where the most bizarre thought can in one second enter into the realm of reality--where, most often, it does enter, like a knife in a heart.
Being an actor can be a cruel experience because there is no cooling-down period. You can be involved in something that's incredibly intense, but then it's a wrap and you've finished and you go home. I find it difficult to complete a job and then return to reality and find my healthy place.
It took the real thing to show you the size of your delusions.
You must learn to know the difference between tales and the truth, my Liza, she would say. Fairy tales have a habit of ending too soon. They never show what happens afterwards when the prince and princess ride off the page.
Genius is a curse. That's how I look at it. Some think that the brilliant comprehend the universe in a way the rest of us can't. They see the world how it truly is—and that reality is so horrible the lose their minds. Clarity leads to insanity.
There comes a moment... When imagination gives out and Reality leaps forth. It is frightful!
I was a microscopic life-form, infinitely large, stumbled backstage of its playhouse, caught a nanosecond glance of its own reality and nearly vaporized in shock.
You can have too much reality.
It's only before realities set in that we can treasure our delusions.
... the best way to strip the allure and dreaminess from a lifelong dream is, very often, simply to have it come true.
The actual tragedies of life bear no relation to one's preconceived ideas. In the event, one is always bewildered by their simplicity, their grandeur of design, and by that element of the bizarre which seems inherent in them.
The death of an illusion tends to disconcert.
